Democracy Works

You might remember Aaron Maybin from his time on the football field at Penn State or in the NFL. These days, he’s doing something much different. He’s an artist, activist, and educator in …

From Pizzagate to Jeffrey Epstein, conspiracies seem to be more prominent than ever in American political discourse. What was once confined to the …

We are back with new episodes this week, and we’re starting with an interview that we recorded in New York City earlier this summer. David McCraw is the Deputy General Counsel of the New …

For the last of our summer rebroadcasts, we are revisiting the conversation with Penn State’s Michael Mann, a world-renowned climate scientist. We’ve just finished the warmest month in …

Since we started this show, we’ve had the opportunity to speak with several organizers, from Joyce Ladner in the Civil Rights movement to Srdja …

This week, we are revisiting another episode from the Democracy Works back catalog. This discussion is a nice companion to our episode with Timothy …

Democracy Works summer break 2019 continues with an episode from Politics and Polls, a podcast produced by the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and …

Our summer break continues this week with an episode of The Pledge, a podcast about people who are taking an active role in improving democracy in …

Our summer break continues this week with a rebroadcast of one of our very first episodes, a conversation with How Democracies Die author Daniel Ziblatt. He spoke at Penn …

Democracy Works is taking a few weeks off for the summer. While we do, we are going to share some older episodes you might have missed, along with a …

Is the United States really a democracy? What will the EU look like in 50 years? What should 2020 candidates be doing to demonstrate civility? Those …

We tend to think about congressional oversight in very academic terms — checks and balances, the Framers, etc. But what does it actually look like on the ground in Congress? To …

Some political scientists and democracy scholars think that it might. The thinking goes something like this: inequality will rise as …

If Alexis de Tocqueville visited America today, what would he have to say about the condition of our democracy?

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Much like our conversation with Patricia Roberts-Miller on demagoguery last week, neoliberalism is one of those fuzzy words that can mean something …

When you think of the word “demagogue,” what comes to mind? Probably someone like Hitler or another bombastic leader, right? Patricia Roberts-Miller is a rhetoric …

By now, you’ve no doubt head all about the report issued by Special Counsel Robert Mueller and the drama in Washington that’s ensued in the time since its release. But, if …

It’s been 65 years since the Brown v. Board of Education changed public schooling throughout a large portion of the United States. In …

Sarah Koenig spent a year inside Cleveland’s criminal justice system for season three of the Serial podcast. Along the way, she met some interesting people and had a birds-eye view of what …

There are a lot of calls these days to “revive civility” in politics. While there are plenty of examples of uncivil behavior, there’s …

E.J. Dionne has the unique perspective of studying the horse race and the big picture of American politics. He writes a twice-weekly …

We are excited to bring you an episode from No Jargon, a podcast from the Scholars Strategy Network. Much like Democracy Works, No Jargon aims to …

Joyce Ladner was at the forefront of the Civil Rights Movement in Mississippi in the 1950s and 60s as a member of the Student Nonviolent …

From Brexit to Hungary to the U.S. border wall, many of today’s political conflicts center around immigration. Moving people from one …

20 years ago, Srdja Popovic was part of a revolution — literally. He was a founding member of the Otpor! movement that ousted Serbia …

We say on this show all the time that democracy is hard work. But what does that really mean? What it is about our dispositions that makes it so hard to see eye to eye and …

We are closing out our series on democracy around the world with a bonus episode from Future Hindsight, a show that features deep conversations with guests who are engaged in strengthening …

We’re just a few weeks away from the deadline for the UK to reach an agreement on its plan to leave the European Union. Nearly three …

To say Brazil has had a complicated history with democracy is a understatement. The country has bounced in and out authoritarian …

This episode is the second in our series looking at democracy around the world. France is the focus this week. Our guest is Cole …

This episode begins a four-part series examining the state of democracy around the world. First up is Hungary, a country that’s often referred to in a group of countries in …

In his book Can Democracy Work? A Short History of a Radical Idea from Ancient Athens to Our World, James Miller encapsulates 2500 years …

No matter where you live, chances are that your local government is filled with things like feasibility studies, property tax assessments, and endless meetings governed by …

Democracy and inequality have been at odds for as long as democracy as has existed. As the gap between rich and poor widens, so too does …

We begin our third season with a fundamental question: What is democracy?

Astra Taylor grapples with this question in a documentary of the same name and a forthcoming book. We …

For this week’s rebroadcast, we revisit an episode on the U.S. Census that originally aired in May 2018. New episodes return January 21 when we talk with “What is Democracy?” director Astra …

Our holiday break continues this week as we bring you an episode with with Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro that originally aired in …

While we take a holiday break, we are going back into the archives to rebroadcast a few of our favorite episodes from earlier this year. This one …

From gerrymandering to record voter turnout, it’s been a busy year for democracy. This doesn’t mean that everything has been positive, but there’s certainly plenty to …

In the United States, voting is a very private act. You step into the booth alone and, for a lot of people, it’s considered taboo to …

Land-grant universities were once known as “democracy’s colleges,” places where people who were not wealthy elites …

As we’ve previously discussed, there are a lot of books about democracy filling book store and library shelves right now. Norman Eisen …

It’s not the Powerball or the Mega Millions, but this democracy lottery does give people the chance to directly impact information that appears on the ballot in their state. …

We observe Veterans Day this week, a time when people across the United States remember and thank those who have served in the military. While the military remains one of …

With the midterms this week, all eyes are on the threat of election hacking and interference. Electoral integrity is important, but as you’ll hear in this week’s episode, …

From cooking to shopping to getting around town, disruption is the name of the game for Millennials. Will they do the same thing to democracy?

Millennials, or those born …

Around the McCourtney Institute, we like to say that we’re “partisans for democracy.” We can think of few people who better embody that notion …

It seems like every few weeks, we see headlines about states banding together to block actions taken by the federal government. You might even remember former Texas Attorney General Greg …

The problems with the prison system in the U.S. have been well documented, but what’s not talked about nearly as often is how things got this way. Why does there seem to be such …

The lights flash in your rearview mirror as the police car comes up behind you. A sinking feeling forms in the pit of your stomach as the officer …

We’ve talked before on this show about the importance of a free press, but this week’s episode brings a whole new meaning to the …

One of the biggest headlines to emerge heading into the 2018 midterms is the record number of female candidates in local, state, and national races. While it’s easy to …

We have access to more information now than at any other time in history, but we trust that information less than ever before. A Gallup survey recently found that 58 percent of …

This weekend marks the one-year anniversary of the Unite The Right rally and counter protests in Charlottesville, Virginia that claimed the life of Heather Heyer and set off a firestorm …

If you’ve been to a book store or the library lately, then you’ve probably seen at least a few books on democracy on the shelves. The 2016 presidential election spurred a lot of …

This is one we’ve been wanting to do since we started the podcast. The term constitutional crisis is frequently used but often misunderstood. Like democracy, it’s hard to define but you …

Polarization is a term that’s thrown around among political pundits as one reason for the decline of American democracy — often without an …

Across the U.S., the process to register to vote and cast a ballot is different in every state. And we’re not just talking about minor details. The entire registration process and timeline …

What is the role of a corporation in a democracy? If you asked Milton Friedman, the answer would be none at all. He famously said in the 1970s that …

This episode is not about climate change. Well, not directly, anyway. Instead, we talk with Nobel Prize winner and Penn State …

Peter Levine is one of the country’s leading scholars in the area of civic engagement. He is the Associate Dean for Research and Lincoln …

We love talking with scholars and thought leaders on Democracy Works, but we’d also like to bring you the everyday stories of democracy in action. …

This week’s episode seeks to answer one simple, but very important, question: Why is it so hard for people to talk to each other? There are a lot of easy answers we can point to, like …

The next census is just around the corner 2020, and the U.S. Census Bureau is already hard at work on preparing to count the more than 325 million people in the United …

Political satire has been around nearly as long as politics itself and can provide a much needed laugh in times of crisis.

But, as …

Over the past few months, the members of Generation Z have combined the tenets of traditional social movements with the power of social media to reimagine what it means to protest in a …

Pennsylvania received a new congressional map earlier this year, closing the books on what was widely considered one of the most …

Can philanthropy save local journalism? Are the calls of “fake news” from Washington impacting the work of journalists in other parts of the country? …

From Watergate to Benghazi to Robert Mueller, U.S. history is full of congressional hearings. You’ve no doubt heard about them in the news, but do …

No matter how much of a sports fan you are, you probably remember seeing Colin Kaepernick kneeling during National Anthem. President Trump …